


Leave Your Palmprints Red Upon my Skin

by ladyofrosefire



Series: An Easy Way to Thaw, The Best Way to Fall [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Blindfolds, Domme Natasha Romanov, F/M, Flogging, Kink Negotiation, Rose fancies herself an artist, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sort of? - Freeform, Sub Bucky Barnes, Subspace, Wax Play, aftercare is for Dommes too, it's late and I forget the term, smut with feelings everywhere, very brief mention of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:19:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James and Natasha have an arrangement. He comes to her, or she comes to him, and he surrenders and it's good. But it isn't always easy. Especially not when there's a leather strap involved and Natasha's not sure that she can strike him with it.<br/>But then, they've always been good at working things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave Your Palmprints Red Upon my Skin

“I want you to hurt me.”

The first time he says it, he is not wearing his collar and he is holding his belt out to her. It’s about two inches wide and the underside of the leather is a little rough. It will leave a mark and it will certainly hurt when it comes down.

It’s also non-descript enough that she can’t get the times a similar instrument has been used on her out of her head.

Natasha pushes his hand down and shakes her head. “I can’t.”

She doesn’t offer an explanation. He doesn’t need one. They both understand the difference between her drawing patterns on his skin with steel that had never been bloodied and deliberately raising welts.

James kisses her to comfort her and when he is on top of her and in her, she rakes her nails down his back with more force than usual and there’s gratitude in his gasps against the side of her neck.

 

It’s not enough and they both know it.

 

James does not push her, not in words and not deliberately in his action, but the next time she has him down on his knees and is trying to take him apart from the outside in, the need shows. He is slow to obey and she can feel him itching for her to push him harder, see it in how he meets her eyes when she looks down at him and how he holds his shoulders like he means to shove himself up again.

He does not disobey her. He stays down.

All the same, Natasha is ready to stop the scene and just ease him back to normal when James finally acts out.

 

He turns his head and bites the side of her neck.

 

One of the first rules they had set, just for his benefit, was that he was not to mark her without her permission and certainly not where it could be seen easily. James never broke their rules. It was a point of pride for her.

 

So Natasha pushes him away and sits up over his thighs. Then she slaps him once across the face.

It is not a hard blow, but the crack of it is loud in the quiet room.

 

Both of them go very still.

There is a flush rising on James’s cheek and up the back of his neck and he…

He’s _gone_. His eyes are unfocused his lips-- kiss-swollen and almost as red as hers-- are slightly parted.

He’s so… _beautiful_ like this.

The only sound is James breathing hard-- oh God, he’s _gasping_ , and his eyes are still closed. Natasha waits for him to speak, her own breath caught in her throat. He swallows hard and she watches the bob of his adam’s apple just above the black leather color fastened around his throat.

“ _...fuck, Talia_.. please, ma’am? Do that again…”

She can barely breathe but she replies nonetheless.

“I’m not rewarding you for that, James.” She touches his cheek soothingly. “But I’m going to give this some serious thought, and then we can use it some other time if you’re very good.”

James nods, as obedient as he usually is when he is here under her. When she ties a thick strip of fabric over his mouth--  real gags are firmly off limits for both of them-- he takes it without complaint.

  


The second time he asks, Natasha is ready for it. He’s not offering her a specific tool this time and that makes this… not easier, but _easy_. Strangely enough, that realization, that she can hurt him when he asks her to, does not scare her.

Natasha nods, then explains what she is going to do before she sends him into the bathroom to shower. It’s a departure from their usual method. She knows what he does and does not like and James prefers not to know what her plan is. It stops him from anticipating. Right now, though, she _has_ to know that he is alright with everything she wants to do.

 

She is going to push him.

 

By the time James returns, Natasha has finished setting up. There is a square yard of linoleum laid out on the wood floor. Massage candles in various colors are arranged around it on three sides and a long, supple strap made of cherry-red leather is coiled next to one of the candles, a strip of dark, thick fabric beside it.

 

Even though he knew it would be there, James freezes when he sees it.

“Tell me if you want to say no, Yasha.” Natasha soothes, picking up the blindfold. “But I think you can do it.”

He nods jerkily and sinks down onto his knees. “I can.”

 

The simple display of trust makes her chest feel tight. Smiling, she brushes her fingers through his hair before she secures the blindfold. Then she bends and kisses him gently, easing the catch in his breath.

“Very good.” She murmurs, picking up his collar. Natasha presses it against James’s throat so he will know what it is.

His relief is palpable.

Natasha fastens the collar around his neck, then guides him down onto his hands and knees. Her hand stays on the dark leather as she guides him forward and onto the linoleum. Even crawling, she can see the control, the strength, in his movements, plain in the shift of muscle under skin.

 

She takes a moment to appreciate what he looks like right now. She had placed special emphasis on his being dry when he came back out and he had followed that order perfectly so there was no sheen of water on his skin, which is a damn shame, really. He’s still stunning, though, of course. James holds his spine more or less parallel to the floor. His hair is mussed from rubbing a towel over it and his lips are slightly parted. She wishes for a moment that she could see his eyes, but the way he shifts and follows her movements by sound alone is too good to pass up. She would do this more often, blindfold him, even put a hood on him so he could not hear her, either, but this was difficult enough for her Лапушка, her darling.

“красивый…” Natasha tells him, _beautiful_.

That gets a laugh from him and just like that, the worry is gone. Natasha straightens her spine and lifts her chin, then steps back. She knows that he can feel the shift in her. It is visible in the way he lowers his head and how his next breath is louder but more even.

Natasha bites back a ‘good boy’ and picks up the strap, swinging it slowly back and forth. A moment later, she allows the end of it to train slowly down his spine.

James tenses for a blow that does not come.

She waits for a moment, right until she thinks he is about to relax again, then brings the strap down. The end of it cracks against his right shoulder blade. It isn’t a hard blow, but it leaves a little wheel of pink.

He stiffens, then lets out a long, trembling breath. “Harder?”

Natasha smirks down at him. “Patience, James.”

There is contrition in the set of his shoulders. “Yes, ma’am.”

Again, she stops the praise before she speaks, instead acknowledging his reply with fingers brushing his hair. She brings the strap down again a moment later.

 

She makes no secret of her rhythm, her pattern, as she works her way down his back, striping his skin pink. For now, she makes no effort to raise welts. This is about getting him used to the feeling of the leather striking his skin and she does not want to hurt him, not really hurt him. James is gasping, almost swaying in place, and she has barely begun. She sees, with some small amount of surprise, that his cock is hardening with each stroke of the leather against his skin.

Natasha stops for a moment and kneels behind him to run a hand over his back. “How are you holding up in there, Yasha?” She murmurs, leaning forward to kiss the back of his shoulder over the mark from her first blow.

“Swell… fantastic, ma’am.” James swallows. “More?”

“Of course.” She rakes her nails down his back before getting smoothly to her feet and raising the strap again.

He cries out this time when Natasha strikes him and she has to remind herself that he asked her for this and that the cry was a sign of how far gone he was. She has not actually hurt him.

She touches the red mark left by the end of the strap for a moment before she continues.

James has moved past gasping. He is caught under Natasha’s steady rhythm, his back arching, muscles twitching at each crack of the leather against his skin. She notices, almost giddily, that James is not trying to fight the blindfold.

He shouts and jerks forward the first time the leather catches him across his ass. Natasha can see his face and the back of his neck burning red. His body tenses again as if he’s ready to run.

“спокойный, Лапушка…” She soothes. _Easy, darling_. “I’m not going to do that again…”

 

Natasha puts the strap down. He may not be done with it, but she is and she has other plans. She guides him up until he’s sitting back on his heels. Her arms slide under his and around his chest, holding him close to her for a moment, his back against the soft cotton of her tank top. One of her hands slides down to the inside of his knee. He whines softly, plaintively and she knows that if she could see his eyes, the look he was undoubtedly giving her would have made her touch him. Instead, she rakes the nails of her other hand down his back, pulling a few soft curses from him.

“None of that. Knees apart. You know how I want you.”

Natasha gets to her feet again and James rearranges himself on the linoleum, knees apart, hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed.

“Much better.”

She picks up a book of matches and lights one. His inhale is audible and she knows that between the sound and the smell of the match, he knows what she is doing.

Good.

Natasha takes her time lighting the candles. There are more here that she plans on using. But James looks too striking with the flickering light from the candle flames dancing over his skin for her to pass up that opportunity.

While the wax melts and pools in the tops of the candles, Natasha guides James down so he is lying on his back with his feet flat on the linoleum and his head away from the candles. He shifts for a moment to find a position that keeps the worst of the welts from rubbing against the floor, then settles.

“Arms above your head, wrists crossed.” Natasha orders. “Right over left.”

He obeys immediately and she rewards him by kissing him as she binds his wrists together with the strap.

“If you even try to break that, the scene stops. _Tell_ me if you need to be allowed up.”

James nods, taking a shaky breath. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Very good.” Natasha picks up the first candle, a deep, rich blue, and settles between his legs. “Are you ready?”

She watches his adam’s apple bob as he swallows, watches the subtle shifting of his hips and the way his hands tighten until they are almost fists.

“Yes, ma’am.” He tells her again, and there is only a touch of tension in his voice.

Natasha begins with a thin stream of wax down the right side of his abdomen, following the well-defined line of the muscle there. The line wavers a little as James jerks under her, gasping at the sudden heat against his skin. A moment later, he relaxes again and nods. She kisses him on the cheek before she continues.

The next stripe goes down the other side of his abdominals just for symmetry’s sake. It earns her another gasp. Then James goes boneless under her as the heat begins to work on him.

“I thought you might enjoy that…” She murmured, brushing her fingers over the sharp lines of his hipbones.

Natasha tips the candle again, splashing blue wax across his sides and chest, a few drops falling on one nipple. He barely moves and she leans down impulsively to press a kiss to his lips and run her fingers through his hair, almost dislodging the blindfold.

She relights the candle she had been using and picks up another. This one is dark forest green and, as she lets the wax splash across his stomach, it combines with the blue lying in his shadows to make her James look like something from a painting. Her hand stays over the center of his chest to keep the wax off of his skin there. A little falls on the back of her hand and she hisses softly. James stirs and she shushes him, pressing her hand down to pin him to the floor. He relaxes again and she continues trickling dark green over his skin.

When that candle’s reserve of melted wax has been depleted, she picks up the last of the candles she plans to use. It is as rich a red as the star on James’s left arm, darker than her hair.

Natasha begins by letting a thin stream of it fall over each hipbone. James cries out, the sound more than half a moan, but does not move. The wax over his chest has little cracks in it from his breathing and the way his muscles twitches every time more fell on his skin. She sprinkles red over these as if to seal them. Then she lifts her hand off of the center of his chest and slowly, very slowly and carefully, fills in the outline of her hand with dark red.

By the time she’s gone, James is whining and gasping under her, turning his head from side to side as he holds himself still. He lets out a long sigh when she finishes.

“Stay there, мой Лапушка.” Natasha orders as she gets slowly to her feet.

 

There is a camera on the dresser and she comes back with it in hand. She pulls James’sblindfold off without ceremony, shows him the camera, then snaps a couple pictures. James goes to  turn his face away and she takes hold of his jaw. She makes him look at her again. His eyes are bright and his pupils are blown wide. His lips are red and a little swollen from how he has been biting them. Natasha takes another picture as color rises in James’s cheeks.

She brings a mirror over next, holding it so that he can see the abstract painting she’s made him into. His eyes catch on the handprint and crinkle at the corners as he smiles.

“You like it, then?” She murmurs, bending down to brush her lips against James’s cheek.

“Yes, ma’am.” He turns his face toward her and kisses the side of her neck.

Natasha brushes her fingers through his hair, then stands up. She catches his eyes for a moment before she hooks her fingers under the waist of her yoga pants and pushes them and her panties down and off her legs. She pulls her shirt off a moment later, then removes her bra. He swallows hard, watching her with a half-open mouth and wide, blue eyes despite the fact that she is not making a show of undressing. It’s not something that she is doing for him. For her plan, it is a necessity.

She settles on his thighs and brushes her fingers up the vein on the underside of his cock. James closes his eyes for a moment, but stays still.

“Very good…” She murmurs, a teasing, almost singsong note to her voice. “Now, Yasha. I’m going to finger myself until I am ready to take you in me, then I am going ride you until I come. You may come _after_ that. Is that clear?”

James swallowed hard and nodded. “I understand, ma’am.”

Natasha slides a hand down between her thighs without looking away from him. James swallows hard. His eyes flick between her face-- her half-lidded eyes and parted lips-- and her fingers teasing slowly over her folds. She watches him and laughs quietly when she sees the way his arms tense. This is an exercise in self control since she did not tie him _to_ anything.

 

“If your hands come up, I am not going to let you come.” Natasha warns.

She is not sure if she means it or if she will just make him beg. But she knows that she will not have to find out.

 

Natasha’s hips roll forward as she easily slides two fingers into herself. The back of her hand brushes against the underside of James’s cock from every so often. Each time, she can see the muscles in his hips tense as he reminds himself that he needs to stay still. So, in a reward that is really just another way for her to tease him, Natasha raises her other hand to her breasts. She makes a show of rolling one nipple between her thumb and forefinger and gives into the next breathy moan that presses up from her throat. James swears softly and she feels him tense under her.

 

Natasha can empathize. She aches and her own fingers are not enough when she knows that all it would take was a few small movements and she could have James’s cock inside her. She grinds the heel of her palm against her clit, groaning in frustration. It’s too imprecise and while it may help for a moment, she needs more.

 

Natasha withdraws her fingers and reaches through an opening in the ring of candles to grab the condom she put there before they started. It only takes her a moment to get the wrapper open and the latex rolled down over James’s cock. He almost thrusts up into her hand when she does it and in response she pinches one of his nipples sharply.

Then she goes up onto her knees, pressing her open hands against his abdomen.

James asks even before she thinks to remind him. “Please ma’am? Please, I need--”

She pressed her fingers to his lips and nodded. “I know. Shh…”

Natasha pauses for another moment. Then she lines his cock up with her entrance and sinks down slowly-- too slowly for either of them to be satisfied with it, but that will come later.  She waits for James to calm, to go still under her again, before she moves. And she moves slowly at first, rocking her hips in a steady, lazy rhythm despite how much she needs friction, needs pressure. Him. But she wants to tease him, wants to watch him come apart completely.

His eyes are tightly shut and his red-bitten mouth hangs partly open as he gasps under her, his hands opening and closing as if he is grasping for a handhold that is not there. The muscles of his abdomen tense and relax rhythmically under her hands as he meets each roll of her hips. There is an urgency to his movements that tells her just how much he wants her to _move_.

 

She does, eventually.

 

Natasha’s movements on him turn to quick, shallow rolls of her hips. The angle isn’t quite right, so she adjusts and at the first _perfect_ push of him in her-- of course her James is doing everything he can to match how she’s moving-- her nails bite into the skin of his chest, cracking the wax and making him hiss softly.

She takes him hard, relentlessly, doing nothing to stifle the cries of pleasure that spill from her lips. Her climax is easily within reach, but she holds off for the time being, forcing her eyes open so she can watch the way he turns and hides his face against his shoulder as he fights to follow her order. His mouth is tight in a way that almost makes him look like he is grimacing in pain, which is not out of the question with how his welted back is skidding on the linoleum every time her hips rock down. He’s almost silent, too. The only sounds that pass his lips are sharp breaths and shaky exhalations and those sound like he’s struggling, like simply moving air in and out of his lungs is too much for him.

 

Natasha decides to take pity on him.

The next time they both get a thrust perfect-- and it does not take long, they move so well together-- she lets the spark of pleasure carry her over the edge. Natasha’s nails rake down his chest and abdomen, leaving white then red trails down his skin. Her body bows with it-- spine curving backward, her thighs squeezing his sides. She makes some sound, she knows, although she does not know what it is or what she says-- his name, perhaps, or curses as she comes down trembling and sensitive and sated.

James is perfectly still under her, his face a mask of concentration as he struggles not keep himself in check.

 

Three sharp thrusts and a murmur of permission later, he comes, shudder and gasping, crying out wordlessly.

She lifts herself off of him after a few moments and turns to blow out each candle in turn. Next to go is the condom, tied off and thrown in the bin. Then she leans down to kiss his forehead, then his lips. “James?”

“Mmmm…” He opens his eyes slowly. They are dark, glassy, and distant.

Natasha smiles down at him, cradles his face between her hands, brushes a thumb over his swollen lips. They stay like that for a while, the candles burning down around them. She runs her hands slowly up and down his sides, then along his arms to his hands. She unties him slowly and curls her fingers around both wrists and guides his arms back down just as slowly.

She stays with him, running her hands slowly over his skin until he starts to come back to himself. Then she helps him sit up.

“How are you feeling?” Natasha asks after a long, lingering kiss. “You were pretty out of it.”

James nodes a little blearily. “I feel… really good. Thank you, ma’am.”

“No need to call me that anymore.” She kisses him on the cheek, then stood. “Come on. Let’s go and get you cleaned up.”

 

She helps him to his feet. Wax cracks and flakes to the linoleum square on the floor. Her handprint is still whole and red on his chest. With a hand lightly on his back, away from the worst of the welts, she leads James into the bathroom where she has already set up everything she needs to put him back together.

The wax goes first once she has him leaning back against the counter and blinking under the lights. She scrapes it away a bit at a time with a little knife that he gave her as a birthday present. Natasha had only ever used with here, with them.

She was happy to see that he was not burned, although his skin was flushed pink. Under the handprint, the color is deeper and she worries for a moment that she misjudged.

 

The thought makes her chest go tight for a moment.

 

Then she catches sight of the almost _wondering_ look on James’s face. It is more than enough to reassure her.

 

Her balance restored, Natasha wets a washcloth with cool water and begins to run it slowly over his chest and abdomen. It takes the last of the flecks of wax with it. Natasha shakes it out above the trash, where she’s deposited the rest of the wax, then re-wets it.

“Turn around, please?” She murmurs.

James laughs quietly, nodded, and turned. He rests his hands on the counter and meets Natasha’s eyes in the mirror. His pupils are still a little blown, but he is breathing normally again and the glassiness is starting to fade from his eyes.

She runs a hand down his back, over the hot welts on his skin, and watches the shiver that runs through him.

“How do those feel?” She asks quietly, leaning forward whisper against the shell of his ear.

“Stings.” He shrugs. “Nothin’ bad.”

Natasha nods, then begins to run the washcloth very, very lightly over James’s back. He hisses a few times, but does not flinch.

She applies ointment to each welt. His skin is not broken and the marks she’d left will heal quickly and cleanly so there was no need to bandage him. Especially since he would just tear them off. Natasha uses more of the ointment on the flushed skin of his chest, stopping every few seconds to lean up and kiss James quickly on the lips.

The fourth time she goes to kiss him, he stops her. “You’re… quiet.”

Natasha shrugged. “I’m processing.”

“Talk to me, then.” James asked, his hands settling on her hips.

She pauses for a few moments as she reaches up and unbuckles the collar. Then she speaks, her voice soft. “I did enjoy that. Quite a bit, actually. I’m trying to understand why.”

“Same reason you like the rest of this?”

“I hurt you, James.” She raises her hands to cradle his face.

“I asked you to.” He replies. “And I enjoyed every second of it.”

Her smile goes wicked around the edges. “Including the blindfold…?”

James sighs, smiles, and leans in to kiss her again before he answers. “Including the blindfold. It’s still not my favorite thing, but I think…”

She nods, understanding, and steps back and wraps herself up in a thick night-robe. “Come on. Pick out a movie and I’ll make some tea?”

James pulls her close for one more kiss after pulling on a pair of sweatpants. “Sounds great.”

They nestle together on the couch, tea cooling on a side table. He watches her with a little smile on his lips and she sleeps, her hand over the fading mark on his chest.

 

It is easy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave suggestions for things for Natasha and James to try in the comments


End file.
